New eCommerce Software Magento 0.6

California-based Varien has released a preview version of its Magento eCommerce software as Open Source.

Magento 0.6 is the first product to appear since the Web application vendor announced the new eCommerce platform in April 2007. Varien says that its new software is flexible, has scalable architecture, and facilitates the integration of third party applications.

Varien offers commercial support for the eCommerce software; an installation guide and a knowledge base are available on the website. Users can test the look&feel and management functionality in a demo shop and via screenshots. Developers advise against deploying the current version in production environments as far-reaching changes and extensions are planned. Varien CEO Roy Rubin launched a new community site parallel to the free Magento 0.6 version.

A second beta is planned for the fourth quarter of 2007, with a third beta to follow early in 2008. The developers have not announced a release date for the final version thus far. Magento 0.6 was released under Open Software License 3.0 and can be downloaded from the company website. The software vendor recommends Linux or any other Unix-compatible system with PHP and MySQL as the operating system platform.

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